Avoid Swelling Of The State Budget, BPJS Kesehatan Managing Director Asks For An Increase In Contributions For A Comprehensive Study

Director of BPJS Kesehatan Ghufron Mukti when delivering a statement to reporters at the Public Expose / Via ANTARA

JAKARTA - BPJS Kesehatan President Director Ghufron Mukti said the increase in membership fees needs to be studied comprehensively in order to avoid swelling the burden of the state budget.

"I hope that until 2024 there will be no increase in contributions. Because there are Rp. 50,000 and Rp. 75,000 circulating on social media," said Ghufron Mukti at the Public Expose of BPJS Health Program and Finance Management at BPJS Kesehatan Headquarters Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, 5 July.

He said that the contribution adjustment does not need to be implemented immediately because it needs to be studied carefully and more comprehensively.

Ghufron said that the BPJS Kesehatan contribution subsidy through the APBN, which involved millions of people in class 3 health services, amounted to Rp. 35,000 from the value that should have been paid at Rp. 42,000 per participant. "Rp7 thousand is subsidized. That's all that is in arrears, there are several millions of people," he said.

According to Ghufron, an increase in BPJS Health membership rates to two times the current nominal has the potential to trigger an increase in the burden of the state budget for subsidies.

"Imagine, if it is doubled (increase in tariffs), will there be more in arrears? Now, from the APBN side, now paying quite a lot of participants, it should be 96.8 million people, but it hasn't arrived yet," he said.

Ghufron said there are many things that must be considered carefully and comprehensively, thus requiring more caution in implementing tariff increases.

Ghufron said BPJS was working on various enforcements in the form of rehabilitation to innovation in funding for people who care about JKN and so on.

"Participation is increasing, but we can't solve the problem to zero, we can't," he said.

The mechanism for increasing the contribution, said Ghufron, also needs to involve input from the participants. "This participant becomes the most important. What do the participants want, up or down? So what if the fees go up? and all kinds of things," he said.

Ghufron appealed to the public not to be fussy over the issue of increasing contributions and to wait for the results of a comprehensive formulation from policy holders so that the review can be comprehensive.